Buffy- "The Key and the Carpenter" parts 1-10

As part of my program to finish my fan fiction collection posting, I am posting revised and complete editions of my Buffy the Vampire Slayer novellas. The first two are complete, and I am radically revising and completing the third, much as I finished my CSI novella "Devil out of Texas" before retiring from CSI fan fiction.

Disclaimers:
Based wholly or partly on characters and situations created by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox Television and who knows what others. PG-13: An unauthorized work of speculative fiction with some adult situations and sexual content, graphic language, brief nudity and mature themes. Parental discretion is advised. Any similarity between these characters and any person or persons living, dead or Canadian is purely coincidental and/or comical. Do not distribute for profit or without notification please. Not to be taken internally. No user-serviceable parts inside. Made in the USA. Where do we go from here? Strongest fanfic available without a prescription. May cause dizziness, dry mouth or nausea. Do not read my fan fiction while driving, drinking or operating heavy machinery.


I know that lots of people don't 'ship the pairs in my stories, but I think they are worth reading anyway. If not, that's okay too.

As to the texts themselves, these are "classic editions." There have been some editorial improvements but few radical rewrites except in the previously unpublished third book. If you skipped these stories before, I hope you reconsider. This is the Buffy universe, post-“Chosen” and more or less compatible with canon through the end of Angel S5. These were my very first fan fictions of any kind... So, more of “The Key and the Carpenter.”
-ReverendKilljoy

Book One: The Key and the Carpenter (cont.)

Prologue.

November 24.

His hands were scarred, and if you knew the scars, you could mark out the stories of his past like picking out constellations in the stars. A thin cut, like a large knife or a small sword might make sliding down past the hilt of his blade. A half-dozen years working with hammers, saws and pliers had left their marks as well. The tiny white circle, a nail gun had put a brad right through the edge of his hand. His wrists were both chafed permanently, where he had pulled out of manacles, or ropes, or both, over the years. They were not pretty hands.

No one who worked with him would know that he thought about this. He was outgoing, inquisitive, and inclusive in a way that made him a natural leader for the mixed crews of volunteers and paid laborers on the Habitat jobs. He had the natural gift of talking to anyone, and the selflessness to not be too full of himself. He could be quiet too, with the quiet of a man who didn’t naturally know when to shut up, but had had it painfully taught to him over the years.

He carefully held a piece of molding against a doorjamb and checked the fit. Then he tilted his head to the right and checked again.

“kerFFFT!” said the nail gun mutedly. Look. Tilt. Look. “kerFFFT!” And so on, in a methodical way down the molding strip till it was fastened. Securing the nail gun he backed away from his last task of the day. This was the finishing piece on the doorway, the doorway to a bedroom. The bedroom was in a small but solid house, the house in a development at the edge of town. Habitat for Humanity was building the house for a single dad, a widower and his three kids who were living in a shelter just outside Lago Vista.

He began to shake off the dust, that pungent blend of gypsum board and sawdust and latex house paint that says New House Smell, and put away his tools. He was the last to leave the site, and would normally be the first to arrive in the morning. Not tomorrow, tomorrow Carlos and Mandy would have to boss things. He was sure they would be fine.


I.

The Previous September

For almost ten years, he had fought the good fight. Demons, vampires, gods, and evil men had taken their toll on his friends, his town, and his body. He had never surrendered. He had rarely wavered. In the last battle, even after losing his eye, he had stood his ground. But that was the beginning of the end, the fight against the First. He had reached the limit of what he could do, how far he could push, and he had to find another way to make his life count.

He had thought about going hardcore, like Robin Wood. A life of training, sacrifice, training, and did I mention the training? But he knew that he didn’t have it in him, too much empathy for that kind of isolated warrior Zen. He was, in the end, a nice guy, a good carpenter, a loyal friend. He needed to find another way to fight.

He had been sitting at the airport, LAX, waiting for his best friend Willow and her girlfriend to meet him. They had been to China on some sort of demon diplomacy thing, very hush-hush, for the new Watchers’ Council. It helped him realize that he was getting farther out of his depth. They would always need him as a friend, a moral compass. He was the guy who fixed things, who provided the unconditional love, who put the world above his own happiness. But less and less did they need him along for every step, and when Willow called to tell him they were late, he knew it was time.

“We have to go to Cleveland and pick up Vi, then we’re going straight to London…” Willow’s voice was still breathlessly girlish over his cell phone, and it made him smile. “So, er, do you want to come with? I know Buffy misses you, and I bet she’ll be in London. I think Rome is starting to make her a little stir crazy,” she confided.

“I can’t, Will. Dawn is coming back to see me in a few weeks when she’s done at school, and I promised Disneyland. If I left now I’d have to turn right back around.” His voice was calm, sure. He sounded so much like a grownup that Willow, still miles from LA on a JAL flight, shot a look at her phone to make sure she had the right number.

“Okay, well I guess that makes sense. You guys have fun, and see you soon. Well, soon as you come see us, or we come see you. But if we come see you and you come see us we’d miss each other…” Her girlfriend, Kennedy, laid a hand on her shoulder, not opening her eyes where she was dozing next to Willow.

“Honey. Babbling.”

“Oh. Right. With the babbling.” Willow squeezed Kennedy’s hand and directed her attention back to her cell phone. “Xander, I miss you, too. Love you.”

“Love, Will. Safe travels.” He hung up and looked at the phone. He now officially had nothing to do till Dawn came for Disney. Well, one little thing. He had to go by an insurance office and pick up a check. Seems the company had carried insurance on all its workers back in Sunnydale, and in addition to his layoff package there was some sort of bonus for management. He’d never thought of himself as management, but the lawyer had said they had a check, so he figured he’d go pick it up.

Xander had done well for himself in Sunnydale, near the end. The school that had been sucked into the Hellmouth during the final battle with the First had been brought in on time, and under budget. His bosses had planned on surprising him with a promotion- Project Manager for Residential and Commercial Construction. Instead, they had fled Sunnydale along with most of the ‘civilian’ population and the company was basically gone. The lawyers were closing up shop and closing the books.

What Xander didn’t know was that he had already been listed with the company’s law firm in LA and with their insurance company as a management employee. The two dollars for ADD that came out of his weekly check, he knew, was something about benefits. Accidental Death and Dismemberment insurance, it was, and based on his newly promoted salary, it came to quite a bit. His layoff package was also generous, since so few officers of the company had made it out and been contacted by the lawyers. For losing an eye, even off the job site, his company ADD insurance was substantial. With his layoff buyout…

“Mr. Harris?” The receptionist took in the rather broad-shouldered man, with unruly dark hair starting to show some premature whitening at the temples. If it weren’t for the eye patch he’d be sort of cute, she thought.

“Present, er, I mean, yes?” Being called by his last name still brought school flashbacks after all this time.

She smiled at his somewhat lopsided grin, and thrust a clipboard at him. If it weren’t for the grin, he’d be sort of dashing, she thought.

“Please print your name at the top, and sign on both highlighted sections, and you can take your check.”

“Sure.” He printed. He signed. “Um, thanks.”

She looked after him. Okay, cute and dashing, she decided.

He walked to his car, the stiff envelope in his back pocket. He figured he had a full paycheck coming to him, maybe two. Things had been so crazy at the end, and it had taken almost two years to get this to him. Still, it would be nice to have some walking-around money.

His basic living expenses were modest by California standards, and he worked odd carpentry jobs to supplement the stipend Buffy had arranged for him as a ‘Consultant’ to the new Watcher’s Council. He enjoyed an older but comfortable one bedroom in a suburb called Lago Vista, sublet from a newly activated Slayer in Training. She was probably complaining to Giles and Andrew about English food right about now. Xander worked most days, took off most weekends. He was never broke and rarely flush, but the sheer normalcy of it was starting to become very comforting, if a little lonely.

On his way to the bank, he passed his favorite video store. His “Chronicles of Narnia” box set was due in, prepaid, and with the trip to LAX he had totally forgotten about it. With visions of talking lions, monsters that can be killed by ordinary swords, and armies that don’t include dying teenage girls crying out in the night, he turned in at the video shop and stuffed the check in the console of his car, to lie forgotten for weeks.


II.

October 8.

Xander drove his Chrysler into the pickup area of the terminal at LAX. Before September 11, you could wait at the gates for your friends and family. When things had been really bad at home one Christmas years ago, he had actually driven to LAX with his buddy Jesse to watch people coming off the planes. Just to see the hugs, the happy reunions, the kisses, and the crying.

Today it was his family coming home, and he had to circle like a parking lot vulture at Wal-Mart instead of waiting at the jet-way. He cocked his head at his own thought. Dawn was family? Well, how else… real or imagined, she had been a part of his life for 10 years, and she was extra special to him because, like him, she wasn’t special. Not the super powered strength and healing or veiny blowing up the world kind of special, anyway.

All he knew was, he’d missed her. She had been finishing school back east, and had decided to see him before going over to Europe with her sister. It flattered him that she came to see him first, that he still mattered in her world. She was such a good kid, and had handled a rough life with humor and dignity, after a tough start at school. She might have shoplifted a little, been a bit unwise in her choice of crushes (Ahem! Spike! Ahem!), but she had grown past it. Xander sometimes wondered if her sister ever noticed just how far Dawn had put her problems into the past. He doubted it. Buffy usually had to have her nosed rubbed in it to see people had changed, for better or for worse.

He suddenly saw a figure jump out at the car and he mashed down on the brake. The car lurched to a stop and his heart lurched with it. He was a good driver, but his blind side some times made him almost too cautious behind the wheel and sudden changes startled him.

“Hey watch it, lady,” he said out loud. “Just watch it, really pretty lady. Really pretty lady who is waving at me and shouting something. Really pretty lady who is… Dawnie?” He shut up, mercifully, just as she opened the door.


III.

“XANDER!” She leaned across the seats and hugged him, her floppy hat sliding off to release the cascade of brown hair he had been looking for in the crowd.

“At your service, Dawn Patrol.” He threw a quick salute as he gathered his thoughts. That could have been awkward, he mused. “Where’s your stuff?”

“Just this,” she said slinging a carryon bag into the back and sliding into the seat next to him. “I’ve been trying to call you and tell you I was here, but my phone’s dead and the charger is, I am pretty sure, in the suitcase the airline has sent to Columbus.”

He carefully merged back into the flow and headed for the airport exit. He gestured towards the glove box.

“If you still have that little Motorola I sent you, I have a spare plug in the console somewhere I think. Welcome to LA, Dawnie.”

Before looking for the cord, she turned, pulling one leg up and twisting round to face him. “Welcome to LA? What am I, a tourist? I’ve lived my whole life in California, Xander. If I had a home to come home to, this would be it.”

She suddenly dimpled. “Gosh it’s good to see you. I’m so glad you decided to let me come visit.” She touched his arm in a very comfortable way, careful not to distract him but wanting to let him feel that she was there.

Xander knew that Dawn had been the best at being comfortable around him after he lost his eye, always staying on his good side, or keeping a fingertip on his arm or a little stream of chatter and humming that let him place her in the room even when he could not see her. It wasn’t something she practiced, and neither of them ever commented on it. She was just the one girl he could always relate to, literally relate to, like a navigation beacon. Hmmm, not a very flattering image. He grinned.

“You can always come here, Dawnie. You know that.”

They settled in for the drive to his place, and she began to hunt for a charger for her phone.

“Any chance we can stop by a mall for a minute? I’m going to need some things if they can’t get my suitcase here tonight.”

“As if. You’ve never stopped at a mall for only a minute in your life.”

She let loose a low chuckle that was warm and honest. “Guilty as charged. I throw myself on the mercy of the court!”

“Well, call me Your Honor and we’ll stop after we get back to Lago Vista. Not a completely horrible town, at least by non-Sunnydale standards”

“Yes, Your Honor. Hey, you a spy or something now?” She was looking at a folded envelope of heavy paper, stamped ‘Personal and Confidential’ in red across the flap. “Very Top Secret looking.”

Xander spared a quick glance at the envelope before returning his eye to the road. “Hey, I’d forgotten about that. It’s my last check from the construction company. I got some sort of settlement. Totally forgot about it.”

“Xander!” She sounded shocked and somewhat put out. Both of them could recall times when forgetting about an un-cashed check would be like forgetting about breathing. Financial stability still held some novelty for both of them.

“Tell you what, I already did bills this month and got us some passes for Disneyland from one of my contractors. Open that up and we can have some ‘mad money’ for this week, okay?”

Dawn squealed in what she knew was a far too girlish way, then bounced eagerly a couple times in a way that was decidedly not so girlish any more. Her time at prep school had been good to Dawn, and she knew it, not that Xander could see while he was driving.

She stopped for a moment, recalling her Xander-centric fantasies of years ago, and amused that she still worried about him noticing her ‘that way’ after this time. He was… Xander. The one person in her life who never ran off, never stopped caring, never took everyone else’s side.

She tore open the envelope suddenly, heading off that unexpectedly serious vein of thought. Thinking, not good. School over, playing begun. No thinking.


IV.

Xander watched carefully as a gigantic SUV heaved out of his blind spot and began to pass them. He’d forgotten how much he hated driving the freeways, especially with some one. He would want to look at her but he had to stay focused on the road. He realized that she had been quiet for too long, and risked a glance at her. He looked quickly at the road, at all his mirrors, trying to build a picture of the space around him, and then risked a longer look at Dawn.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” She was expressionlessly looking at the check, something akin to Willow’s famous Resolve Face, but more empty. “Not enough for snow cones at the park? It’s okay, I have a little put away for the week. I’d forgotten that check was even in there.”

“Xander,” her voice was almost eerily calm, “how long were you a manager at that company?”

“Manager? Dawnie, we’d talked about me moving up, but nothing ever happened. I got hurt, then, later, there wasn’t any company to go back to. What’s wrong, you’re scaring me.”

She read, quietly.

“It says, ‘Mr. Harris, as one of three claimants for the distribution of the employee fund, you are entitled to a lump sum payment as detailed below. We have taken the liberty of enclosing, in addition, your cash disbursal from Sunnydale Ltd. Life, Insurers, for the injury you suffered resulting in your vision impairment, plus all interest accrued on these balances while we awaited your claim of these funds, detail in section 3 below. In addition to this lump sum payment, your disability payments for the time prior to July of this year have been added, along with reimbursement of your medical expenses minus deductibles… see section 4…’ and on and on. There’s four pages of this stuff, then the last page is a check.”

“Wow. I knew I had coverage and everything, I just figured that getting out alive was good enough, and Anya had always…” He stopped a moment, then squared his shoulders and continued, “she had always done that stuff, and I just left it when we split up. After she died, I didn’t want to go into it. So, you’re telling me we can buy you some new clothes at the mall, stuff like that?”

He grinned, the first big Xander Harris special grin she’s seen in a long time, longer than she’d been away. “Maybe dinner somewhere nice, this Italian place I know makes great chicken. You deserve something nice.”

She slowly shook her head, and then realized he could not see the gesture.

“Xander, you can buy anything you want at that restaurant tonight. And tomorrow night. And all weekend. Then Monday you can probably cut out the middle man and just buy the restaurant.”

“Wha? With the I say again ‘wha?’” He pulled over to the side of the road, stopped, put on the brake, and turned to her.

“I’m sorry, that wasn’t very clear. WHA?” He was pale, and his hands showed white scars where they gripped the wheel.

She didn’t trust herself to speak. She just held up the last page, showing him the check.

“Dawn.”

“Yes, Xander?”

“I can’t take this money. What would I do with it?”

“Anything you want. Buy whatever you need, whatever you want…”

“I have everything I need.”

“Just remember, I loved you before you were rich.” It was a joke, and he grinned at her grin. Still, as soon as the words left her mouth, they sounded strange. Better not talk like that, might give the wrong impression.


V.

They drove in silence to his apartment. Then they promptly drove back out, depositing his check in the bank’s night box. He said it made him nervous to carry it. They drove back the apartment. Then back out again, to get dinner at the nice and rather cheap Italian place he knew that had great chicken.

It was a subdued evening. If only his old friends could see him. Xander, the Quiet Man. Still, he was comforted by having Dawn there, and she was unsure of what to say, so she filled the gaps with idle chitchat about school, about her classes, and the Nice Boys Who Had Not Worked Out. Xander made the right ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ and ‘mmm-hmmms’ but she could tell he was a million miles away. He let her drive home, which she still enjoyed as something of a novelty.

When they got back to the apartment, Dawn did not unbuckle her seatbelt. She sat, facing straight ahead, and said quietly, “Xander?”

He paused, already opening his door. “Yeah?”

“I have to go to the store. I never did hear from the airline about my bag.”

“Oh, I totally forgot. Look, I can loan you a toothbrush, and I’m sure I have something from the oversized manly collection for you to sleep in. Tomorrow we can get everything else sorted out. Is that okay?” He started to climb out, assuming assent.

“Xander!?” Her voice had a catch in it that brought him back to his seat in a hurry.

“Dawnie, what’s wrong?” He searched her profile, wishing she’d face him. One surprising effect of his reduced depth perception was that profiles were very dramatic and thus hard to read.

“I need some things from the store that can’t wait.” She turned suddenly and he saw plainly how tough this was for her. “You know… girl… things…”

He barely caught himself from laughing. Poor Dawnie, always a little girl at the worst moments… he knew how embarrassed she was to talk about this, like this, in front of him.

“Dawn, who is my best friend ever, present company excepted of course?”

“Willow? Willow and Buffy.”

“Mmm hmmm. And, I lived in a house with you, and Buffy, and Willow, and a dozen odd Slayers in Training, for months. I am distressingly familiar with ‘girl things.’” He tried to sound reassuring. Instead she began to quiver her lip in a way that alarmed him.

“It’s just, I don’t have anything with me, and I expected to have my bag… and I spent all my money on…” She caught herself, and continued, “well I don’t have any money left tonight and I’d prefer we do not keep talking about this so I do not have to move away to a temple in Tibet where no one speaks. Okay?”

“There’s a pharmacy on Baker, we passed it about three blocks back. You know where?” She nodded. He reached into his billfold. “Here, this was for Disney, we can make it up out of that insane mad money check tomorrow. Get anything you need. I’m going up with the spare key. You use my keys and let yourself in when you get back. Okay?”

She took the bills without looking at them and sniffled a bit, facing ahead again. “I’m so sorry. Maybe I should have gone to London, instead of coming here and getting all drippy.”

“Hey, hey!” he took her chin in his hand and turned her again to face him. “It’s been a long and very strange evening. I obviously have a lot of thinking to do. I can’t imagine doing it without you here. Go get whatever you need, and come home, okay?”

“Okay.”

“See you.” Without really thinking about it, he leaned forward and gave her a hug. She held back for a moment, and then crushed him with a hug that would have made her Slayer-strong sister proud.

“You’re such a good guy, Xan. I didn’t mean what I said- I’m glad I came.”

“And with the breathing…” he muttered.

“Oh Goddess, sorry!” She let go, blushing. He noticed she looked cute when she blushed, because it went to where her collarbones peeked out of her top. And now he was staring at her chest, so feeling like a dirty old man, he blushed too.

“See you upstairs,” he said with feigned casualness and hightailed it to his apartment. She got control of herself a bit and headed for the pharmacy.

When she got back, she found him draped across the couch, surrounded by bills and bank statements and some kind of blueprints. He was snoring softly and his eye patch was a little askew. She knew how much anyone seeing his ruined eye bothered him, so she ever so gently slid the patch back in place. Satisfied, she threw an afghan over him and went to his bedroom.

His bed had clean sheets and was turned down, with a bunch of daisies in a purple ribbon on the pillow with a note that said, “Welcome Home, Graduate!” on it. The “Graduate” had an asterisk marked in, and at the bottom he had written, “Well, Earned her Diploma then Skipped Telling Anyone till it was TOO LATE FOR PRESENTS Person!” Inside the card were two passes to Disneyland and a note: “D- for a magical vacation -X.”

She took care of this and that in the small bathroom, then put on a large white t-shirt that had been laid out on the bed. As she fell asleep, she realized that it smelled like him. It was a comforting smell.


VI.

October 9.

Xander woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of quiet conversation coming from his bathroom. That was unusual, on both counts. Also, he was fully dressed and had managed to get bed hair and sweaty neck from sleeping on his couch.

“Kasey, look… Kasey? …That’s not fair.”

He recognized Dawn’s voice, but she was obviously trying not to be heard. He checked his eye patch, closed his eye and tried unsuccessfully not to listen.

“I’ve said I’m sorry. No, I don’t think you are listening to me. No. No, you’ve never really…” She paused for a long while, and then continued more evenly, “Can we just not do this now? Fine. No. Fine. I’m hanging up now.” She was crying, or near it. “No. No. I’m hanging up now. I’m hanging… yeah. Good bye.”

When the bathroom door opened Xander lay, feigning sleep.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re up. I’m….” She gestured vaguely back over her shoulder with the phone towards the bathroom. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. She flopped on the end of the couch, sliding under his feet so they lay in her lap as he stretched the kinks out of his neck.

“Anything you want to talk about, Dawnmeister?” He pulled his feet off her lap and sat up, rolling his shoulders with cracks and pops as he tried to smooth his hair down.

“No. Yes.” She smiled and shot him a quick look. “Yes, but not now?”

“Ah, that place. I too have resided in Yesbutnotnowville. I think it’s near Whoville, but I may be mistaken.” He sniffed. “And elves snuck in today and made coffee.”

She rose and got him a cup as he started absentmindedly tidying up the paper storm surrounding the couch and coffee table.

“Thanks.” He took a sip. Black, sweet. Perfect. For some reason he remembered an old Taster’s Choice commercial with some dashing coffee drinking guy that was all sophisticated and flirting. He wished he could say something clever from that, but it was too early even for his encyclopedic memory of pop culture to dredge that one up. She’d probably never seen it anyway.

“So, the House of the Mouse today?”

She still seemed a little melancholy.

“Well,” she said, “I already called the airline. Still no baggage, luggage or otherage. I can’t exactly wear this out, can I?” She gave the hem of her nightshirt a little pop and he realized with a start that she was wearing his old white t-shirt.

He’s seen her wear less, over the years, even a bikini that had been rather impressive one summer. Still, he’d been living pretty much alone for over a year, and was not prepared for the miles and miles of thigh that flashed his way when she did that. He looked around, anywhere but at her legs.

“Oh, hey. We can find something for you to wear. Go hit some stores. Don’t worry about money, I’ll take care of you.” He reached out to put his hand comfortingly on her knee, but thought the better of it. This left his hand wavering around awkwardly in front of her for a long moment while his brain shifted gears.

She stared at his hand like it was a cobra in her cornflakes. She opened her mouth but seemed powerless to speak as her eyes tracked his hand around, back and forth. Finally he pulled his hand back and she forced herself to speak.

“So, um. Uh, you actually decided to use some of that money? From yesterday? Good for you, you deserve it.”

“’That money…?’ Oh. Oh! THAT money. Actually I’d forgotten.” He laughed softly. “Not used to having it there. I guess I’m just used to promising to take care of you… Dawn?”

She’d clouded over like a seaside town with a sudden wind change.

“I’m not a little girl any more, Xander Harris. I’m not little Dawnie who needs a supernatural army living in her living room to protect her, thank you for noticing. I haven’t been that girl for years, and I wish you would stop treating me like I was.” She huffed up off the couch and went into the bedroom before he could say anything.

“The hell…?” he wondered out loud.


VII.

“The hell…?” she breathed to herself as she lay on his bed, holding back tears. Hard to announce how grown up you are then run to your bed and cry, but she was nearing it fast. There had just been too much, and to get this from the one man she really respected, the one who always cared for her.

She took a deep breath. She opened her eyes, and saw Xander’s card and the tickets sitting next to the bed. This wasn’t some jerk of a Yalie treating her like a baby because he was a frosh and she wasn’t yet. This was Xander. He deserved the benefit of the doubt, after everything he had done, and was doing, for her. She pulled her legs under her, stretching like a cat. Time to make with the sorry.

“Xander?” she called as she stretched and started to get up.

He had been about to knock on the door to talk to her, his hand raised to rap lightly. She had not closed the door completely. When she called his name, he pushed a little harder than he’d intended and the door swung open.

There, peeking out from under the hem of his old Haynes Beefy T, was a perfect ass, square in the middle of his bed. She was stretching and getting up. Even as he saw her, he wildly spun around to look any elsewhere, making Gollum Gollum noises in his throat like he was auditioning for Peter Jackson.

“Whoops!” she grabbed at the back of her shirt as she bolted upright and spun to face him. This of course had the effect of pulling the shirt down in the back, and lifting the front just as she faced him. Luckily he was looking away… to the bathroom mirror, which angled just enough so she flashed him squarely via the mirror as he turned his back to her.

“Glagg umm Mrorft,” he said clearly, throwing his hands up and putting his eye down looking for a safe place to look. She pulled hastily at the front of her shirt. It pulled down plenty far to cover her. And far enough to expose a generous slice of cleavage and rub over her nipples, which decided to join the fun by popping up like those meat thermometers that come in the turkeys at the grocery store. “Ding! Turkey’s done!” they shouted to her in her head.

It simply could not get any worse, and she collapsed in a blushing heap onto the edge of the bed, arms crossed over her chest, chin tucked down and hair falling forward to cover her face like Cousin Itt.

It got worse.

Xander, having missed the unscheduled Twin Peaks marathon behind him by virtue of shutting his eye and holding his hands up as he rushed towards the safety of the bathroom, managed to kick over the trash can with a thunk as he dragged the door closed while shouting “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” like a deranged Milton Bradley pitchman.

Out came tissues, a plastic bag from the pharmacy, an empty can of shave gel… and one very obviously used EPT that had been carefully wrapped in the pharmacy bag.

He stopped, his shouts died in his throat. There was an Early Pregnancy Test kit in his trash, and a blushing, crying half naked teenager in his bed. He was out of his parent’s basement, single, and suddenly very nearly rich.

“May I have the Hellmouth back, please?” he muttered as he slowly kneeled to look at the white plastic test kit. He felt vertigo, like he had not felt since he first lost his eye.

“Dawn?” he called softly. No answer.

Carefully he opened the door and saw her softly weeping, sitting on the edge of his bed. If he was reading that thing right, she had reason to weep, especially with the reception he was giving her. Feeling like a complete cad, he tossed the EPT back onto the counter behind him as he moved to kneel in front of her.

She sniffled loudly and took in a ragged breath, but it came back out choked into soft sobs. She didn’t flinch when he put his hands on her shoulders and touched his forehead to hers.

“Dawn Summers, I love you. I worry about you and look out for you because I love you and care about you. I always will, and I always have. Not because of whose sister you are, or because how I wanted your mom to trust me, or to get your sister’s approval.”

“I looked out for you before an evil bitch goddess wanted to kill you to unmake the world, and I’ve never cared that you were the Key. I love you because you’ve always been worth loving and no matter what happens, I’m not going to judge you or yell at you or tell you what’s best. I’m here for you.”

She looked up, the hair parting to reveal those amazing eyes. She looked shocked, shaken and amazed.

“Do you? Do you really love me? For me?” Looking at his face, she finally understood what Giles had meant when he had called Xander the Heart of the Scooby gang. There was Love, capital L. It was basic, axiomatic. Danny is short. Joss can’t dance. Xander is Love. It made her toes curl and grip the carpet.

“Of course I love you. Okay?”

“Well, there’s so much going on… it’s been so awful…”

“Forget it,” he interrupted her. “You’re here with me now, and you’re going to be okay. Everything else can be worked out.”

She realized, at that moment, that it was true. As long as she was with Xander, he would love her and she would be okay. Why hadn’t she seen it sooner?

She flipped her hair back and it cascaded over his hands on her shoulders. Her mouth, glistening with tears at one corner, opened like she was going to speak. With a glad cry in her throat she slid off the bed into his arms and kissed him hard and firmly on his lips.


VIII.

He kissed her back. His lips parted and she was soft and urgent against him. She trembled in his arms and his hips rocked forward closing the distance between them as they embraced, kneeling next to his bed.

He was kissing Dawn, his thighs pressing against hers, her teeth grating against his and her breasts flattening against his chest. And she was pregnant with another man’s child.

“WHOA!” he pushed back, eye open comically wide, and held her at arms’ length. “Dawn, what are you doing? The kissing. We. What are we…? And again, the kissing…”

Her eyes opened and she was suddenly wary, hurt. “You love me. And I realized how stupid I’ve been, looking for someone to love me and trying to make someone fit into my life.” She looked at him with glowing eyes and flushed cheeks. “Last night nothing was forced to fit. It was all so perfectly normal. I woke up thinking why can’t I find someone who loves me the way you do… and then today you told me. You do love me, you are the one who loves me the way you do. And now we don’t have to be alone any more.”

She leaned in to kiss him again.

“We have to talk.”

“Mmm!” she whimpered. “After, just a minute?” She leaned in again.

“Please, Dawn, trying to avoid total meltdown. No more fuel on the fire?”

“I love it when you all me Dawn. Dawnie is a little girl’s name. Dawn is a woman’s name… what’s wrong?” She looked at him, pulled back and looked again.

“Oh, hell no.” Her voice was soft but quick with rising panic. “You love me. But you mean you love me like ‘I love puppies, I love sunsets, I love…’ Oh, hell no!”

She tried to pull away. Without thinking he pulled her to him, putting his chin on her shoulder so he could hold her close without having to look into those eyes.

He thought about life. Cordelia. Anya. That wonderful-awful time with Faith. Willow, even. What they all had in common, they didn’t need him as much as he needed them. He had loved, and been loved, but never had someone needed so completely to take all the love he had to give as this girl, this young woman, in his arms. His heart, always on his sleeve, had nevertheless been shackled, and here was the Key, if only he would reach out for it. And she loved him too. He could feel it like he could have felt the sun on his face. He felt like an idiot, but a damned lucky idiot.

“I grew up in Sunnydale. We don’t stop to admire sunsets, Sunnydalers. Too many things going the wrong kind of bump in the night to welcome a sunset.” He pulled back and looked her in the eye. Corny as it was, he could not resist, and to his eternal credit, with absolutely straight face, he told her, “But for myself? I’ve always loved the dawn…”

She stared, amazed and outraged at the total LINEiness of the line. But, as ever in her life, she could not stay mad. Laughing, she hugged him like she never planned on letting him go.


IX.

After a while, Xander realized he could not spend the whole day holding a half naked woman in his bedroom. Okay, well, he could, but he shouldn’t. They really needed to talk. Really talk, in a way that was becoming less and less likely the longer she held him like that.

“Let’s find you something to wear and get some breakfast. I think we have a lot to talk about.”

“No,” she said, squeezing him tighter. “Tell me you love me. Tell me we are going to be very happy, or I am not getting up.”

He laughed. “I love you.” He did. Amazing. “We are going to be very happy. Oh, or I am not getting up, either.” He rose, and lifted her up, set her on her feet. God, she was beautiful. Okay, okay, focus, Xander, focus. “Um, clothes?”

She turned and grabbed her jeans, which had been folded neatly over the back of the chair he used as a bedside table. Without pretense or show, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, she started slipping into them while calling back over her shoulder to him.

“Well, I can just ‘go commando’ till we get some breakfast, but I need to get to the store. Got shelter, getting food, need clothes, ‘kay?”

He turned, trying not to watch as she slipped his t-shirt into her jeans and threw on her little black jacket. He grabbed a faded denim shirt, worn but clean, off the back of the door and shrugged off the one he had slept in. He felt more naked changing shirts in front of Dawn than he had being naked-naked with Anya. A matter of expectations, he guessed. He turned to find Dawn eying him appreciatively up and down. He needed a shave, and his hair was doing a ‘look at me, wild hair, first time in captivity’ thing.

She thought he was gorgeous. Not pretty. Not chiseled, nor broody and mysterious. But his chest was solid, his tummy flat enough to look good and soft enough for hugging. He had broad shoulders and heavily muscled arms, and strong looking hands that raised some vaguely naughty thoughts in her mind.

“How,” he asked her, “do girls do that?”

“Do what?”

“You are dressing out of my shirt drawer and whatever you showed up with yesterday. This is my place and everything I own is in it, just about. But I feel like a doggie bag after the doggie tore into it, and you look like you stepped off the cover of Cosmo. It’s not natural.”

She giggled and did a little half-turn thing he’d seen women do when they were flattered to be looked at. Then she leaned into him, planted a quick kiss on his cheek and breezed past him into the living room, saying, “You are just adorable. Keep that up.”

He followed, taking a second to close the bathroom door on the spilled trash and the EPT in the sink. They would have enough to talk about with recent developments, and he could wait for her to find her own time to tell him her story. One mind-blowing shock at a time, he thought.


X.

The route to his favorite breakfast place was a short drive north, about five minutes, and the sun streamed in Dawn’s window and made her hair shine and blaze. It was a quiet drive, peaceful. How long have I missed peace, he thought. Dawn had one hand lightly touching his arm, friendly, possessive, comforting. Every time he snuck a glance at her, her face was turned to the sun, eyes closed, basking, and looking content.

Radiant, he thought. Isn’t that what they always say? Mothers-to-be look radiant? It fit, scary as the thought was. He’d always thought of her hair as brown, but with the sun reflecting and refracting through it, he could see now it was brown, and auburn, and blonde, a hundred shades catching the light and shining to make one beautiful color in the sun.

They pulled up, a little hole in the wall called “Not Warner Brothers’ Deli.” Apparently, it had been Warner Brother’s Deli at some time, and had grudgingly had the “NOT” painted in as the result of some out of court settlement. There was a counter with a few regulars, and some good smells coming from the kitchen. Tending the register was a tall but weathered older man, with iron-grey hair in a ponytail that might not have been cut since the Summer of Love.

“Come on in,” Xander said, offering his hand as he held the door.

She slid past and around him and wound up arm in arm moving towards a booth by the end of the counter. Xander nodded to the man at the register, who waved back.

“Hey, Pop, how’s things?” Xander called over to him.

Pop ambled over as they slid into the booth, his eyes surveying Dawn even as he clasped Xander on the shoulder. When he spoke, his voice seemed to come from around his shoes and well up inside him, perfectly rounded tones that would have fit James Earl Jones if not for the Yiddish accent.

“And Xander my boy, who is this? You come alone four, five days a week for over a year, and now this little Maideleh?” he wagged his eyebrows and winked at her delighted expression. “Not exactly a zaftig shaineh maidel, but we work with what we have, just need to feed her something. Shalom, dear girl. Welcome.”

“Aleichem shalom, Pop. Everything smells wonderfull!”

Xander stared at her like he was waiting for the other snake to drop. Pop just tossed his head back and laughed, then bowed deeply and headed back to the register, tussling Xander’s hair on the way.

“Keep this one, son. Mazel!”

Xander found his voice at last. “And you became fluent in Hebrew when?”

Dawn laughed and grabbed his hand over the table. “Yiddish silly. He just said I was a nice pretty girl but I need to eat something. Anyway, Willow was teaching me some Hebrew.” She shrugged. “It helped with research, and then at school I found that the same kids who checked out the Hebrew books all talked about everyone in Yiddish. I’ve never taken well to people talking over my head, so I started picking it up. It’s fun! Heck after teaching myself Sumerian it was a breeze.”

“Amazing.” He’d never really thought about how much Dawn had picked up as Research Girl and Junior Scooby. It had just seemed right and no one had ever talked about it that he could recall.

“And here you loved me for just my kisses, when I am also a poly-lingual genius and all around scholar girl.” She laughed and he shook his head again.


-more to come-